Alvin Lee R.I.P. Ten Years After - Boston WBCN-FM 1989-11-14

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Alvin Lee (born Graham Alvin Barnes, 19 December 1944 – 6 March 2013) was an English rock guitarist and singer. He was best known as the lead guitarist and singer with blues-rock band Ten Years After.

Biography:
Born in Nottingham, he began playing guitar at the age of 13, and with Leo Lyons formed the core of the band Ten Years After in 1960. Influenced by his parents' collection of jazz and blues records, it was the advent of rock and roll that sparked his interest, and guitarists such as Chuck Berry and Scotty Moore provided his inspiration.

Lee began to play professionally in 1962, in a band named the Jaybirds, who enjoyed popularity in their native England, but moved on to seek a wider fan base. They began that year to perform in the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany, following closely behind The Beatles. There, with Alvin Lee assuming the permanent role of lead vocalist in addition to that of lead guitarist, they began to build a following. It was not until the band moved to London in 1966 and changed its name, first to Jaybird, dropping 'The' and 's' to make it sound more contemporary; then to Blues Yard (for one gig at the Marquee Club); and finally to Ten Years After, that international success beckoned. The band secured a residency at the Marquee Club, and an invitation to the Windsor Jazz & Blues Festival in 1967 led to their first recording contract. The self-titled debut album received airplay on San Francisco, California's underground radio stations and was embraced by listeners, including concert promoter Bill Graham, who invited the band to tour the United States for the first time in 1968. Ten Years After would ultimately tour the U.S. twenty-eight times in seven years, more than any other UK band.

Appearing at the Woodstock Festival, Lee's performance was captured on film in the documentary of the festival and his playing helped catapult him into stardom. Soon the band was playing arenas and stadiums around the globe. Although Lee later lamented that he missed the intimacy of smaller venues, the impact the film made brought his music to a worldwide audience.

Ten Years After had success, releasing ten albums together, but by 1973, Lee was feeling limited by the band's style. Moving to Columbia Records had resulted in a radio hit song, "I'd Love To Change the World," but Lee preferred blues-rock to the pop to which the label steered them. He left Ten Years After after their second Columbia LP. With American gospel singer Mylon LeFevre and George Harrison, Steve Winwood, Ronnie Wood and Mick Fleetwood, he recorded and released On the Road to Freedom, an acclaimed album that was at the forefront of country rock. Also in 1973 he sat in on the Jerry Lee Lewis double album "The Session" recorded in London featuring many other guest stars including Albert Lee, Peter Frampton and Rory Gallagher. A year later, in response to a dare, Lee formed Alvin Lee & Company to play a show at the Rainbow in London and released it as a double live album, In Flight. Various members of the band continued on with Lee for his next two albums, Pump Iron! and Let It Rock. In late 1975, he played guitar for a couple of tracks on Bo Diddley's The 20th Anniversary of Rock 'n' Roll all-star album. He finished out the 1970s with Ten Years Later who also released two albums, Rocket Fuel (1978) and Ride On (1979) and toured extensively throughout Europe and the United States.

The 1980s brought another change in Lee's direction, with two albums that were collaborations with Rare Bird's Steve Gould, and a tour with the former John Mayall and Rolling Stones' guitarist Mick Taylor joining his band.

Lee's overall musical output includes more than twenty albums, including 1985's Detroit Diesel, and the back to back 1990s collections of Zoom and Nineteen Ninety-Four (U.S. title I Hear You Rockin' ). Guest artists on both albums included George Harrison.

In Tennessee, recorded with Scotty Moore and D. J. Fontana, was released in 2004. Lee's most recent album, Still on the Road to Freedom, was released in September 2012.

Lee died on 6 March 2013 in Spain. According to his website, he died from "unforeseen complications following a routine surgical procedure." He was 68. His former bandmates lamented his death, Leo Lyons called him "the closest thing I had to a brother", while Ric Lee (no relation) said "I don't think it's even sunk in yet as to the reality of his passing." Billboard Magazine wrote of his passing, highlighting such landmark performances as "I'm Going Home" from the Woodstock festival and his 1971 hit single "I'd Love to Change the World."

Ten Years After are an English blues rock band, most popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

After several years of local success in the Nottingham/Mansfield area as a band known since 1962 as The Jaybirds (its core was formed in late 1960 as Ivan Jay and the Jaycats), and later as Ivan Jay and the Jaymen, Ten Years After was founded by Alvin Lee and Leo Lyons. Ivan Jay sang lead vocals from late 1960 to 1962 and was joined by Ric Lee in August 1965, replacing drummer Dave Quickmire, who had replaced Pete Evans in 1962. In 1966 The Jaybirds moved to London, where Chick Churchill joined the group. That November the quartet signed a manager, Chris Wright, and decided to change their name to Blues Trip, Blues Yard (under which they played a show at the Marquee Club supporting the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band), and finally in November 1966, to Ten Years After (in honour of Elvis Presley, an idol of Lee's whose momentous year in rock, 1956, helps to better explain the band's title). They became the first band of the soon-to-be Chrysalis Agency. They secured a residency at the Marquee, and received an invitation to play at the renowned Windsor Jazz Festival in 1967. That performance led to a contract with Deram, a subsidiary company of Decca – the first band so signed without a hit single. In October, their 1967 self-titled debut album was released.

In 1968, after touring Scandinavia and the United States, Ten Years After released their second album, live Undead, which brought their first classic, "I'm Going Home." This was followed in February 1969 by studio issue, Stonedhenge, a British hit, that included another classic, "Hear Me Calling" (it was released also as a single, and covered in 1972 by British glam rock rising stars, Slade). In July 1969 they appeared at the Newport Jazz Festival, in the first event to which rock bands were invited. In August, the band performed a breakthrough American appearance at Woodstock; their furious-to-soft-to-furious rendition of "I'm Going Home" featuring Alvin Lee as the lead singer was featured in both the subsequent film and soundtrack album and catapulted them to star status.

During 1970, Ten Years After released "Love Like a Man", their only hit in the UK Singles Chart. This song was on their fifth album, Cricklewood Green. The name of the album comes from a friend of the group who lived in Cricklewood, London. He grew a sort of plant which was said to have hallucinogenic effects. The band did not know the name of this plant, so they called their album Cricklewood Green. It was the first record to be issued with a different playing speed on both sides – one a three-minute edit at 45rpm, the other, a nine-minute live version at 33rpm. In August, Ten Years After played the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 to an audience of 600,000.

In 1971, the band released the album A Space in Time which marked a move toward more commercial material. It featured their biggest hit, "I'd Love To Change The World". But a few albums later, the band broke up after the 1974 album Positive Vibrations. They re-united in 1983 to play the Reading Festival and this performance was later released on CD as The Friday Rock Show Sessions - Live At Reading '83' . In 1988, they re-united for a few concerts and recorded the album About Time (1989). Finally, in 1994, they participated in the Eurowoodstock festival in Budapest.

Alvin Lee has since then mostly played and recorded under his own name. In 2004, the other band members replaced him with Joe Gooch and recorded the album Now. Material from the following tour was used for the 2005 double album Roadworks. Ric Lee is currently in a band called The Breakers, along with Ian Ellis (Clouds). 

UK Single 1969

Ten Years After is a British blues-rock quartet consisting of Alvin Lee (born December 19, 1944), guitar and vocals; Chick Churchill (born January 2, 1949), keyboards; Leo Lyons (born November 30, 1944) bass; and Ric Lee (born October 20, 1945), drums. The group was formed in 1967 and signed to Decca in England. Their first album was not a success, but their second, the live Undead (1968) containing "I'm Going Home," a six-minute blues workout by the fleet-fingered Alvin, hit the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. Stonedhenge (1969) hit the U.K. Top Ten in early 1969. Ten Years After's U.S. breakthrough came as a result of their appearance at Woodstock, at which they played a nine-minute version of "I'm Going Home." Their next album, Ssssh, reached the U.S. Top 20, and Cricklewood Green, containing the hit single "Love Like a Man," reached number four. 

Watt completed the group's Decca contract, after which they signed with Columbia and moved in a more mainstream pop direction, typified by the gold-selling 1971 album A Space in Time and its Top 40 single "I'd Love to Change the World." Subsequent efforts in that direction were less successful, however, and Ten Years After split up after the release of Positive Vibrations in 1974. They reunited in 1988 for concerts in Europe and recorded their first new album in 15 years, About Time, in 1989 before disbanding once again. In 2001, Ric Lee was preparing the back catalog for rerelease when he discoverd the Live at the Fillmore East 1970 tapes. He approached Alvin about getting back together to promote the lost album, but Alvin Lee declined. The rest of the band was up for it, though, and together with guitarist Joe Gooch, Ten Years After started touring again. In addition to touring the world, this new incarnation recorded their first new material in about a decade and a half and released Now in 2004 and added the live double CD set Roadworks in 2005. [AMG & Wikipedia]

TEN YEARS AFTER
November 14, 1989 Tuesday 11pm
Paradise Theatre,
Boston, Ma.
WBCN-FM Stereo

* Chick Churchill - keyboards
* Alvin Lee - guitar, vocals
* Ric Lee - drums
* Leo Lyons - bass 

Disc One: 
01. Rock 'n' Roll Music To The World  4:54
02. Hear Me Calling  5:54
03. Good Morning Little Schoolgirl  8:08
04. Slow Blues In C  6:53
05. Let's Shake It Up  4:13
06. Hobbit  5:41
07. Love Like A Man  6:41
08. Saturday Night  4:04
09. Bad Blood  6:57
10. Johnny B. Goode  2:35

Disc Two   
01. Scat Thing > I Can't Keep From Crying Sometimes  19:19
02. Victim Of Circumstance  5:28
03. I'm Going Home  12:58
04. ovation & dj  1:36

First Encore
05. Choo Choo Mama  4:11
06. Ovation & dj  1:09

Second Encore
07. Rip It Up  3:56
08. Ovation & dj  3:09

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